


Battle of New York

by ineswrites



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, First Kiss, Getting Together, M/M, Strike Team, but also fluff, omnipresent death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-10-02 05:20:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10210460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineswrites/pseuds/ineswrites
Summary: The events of The Avengers from Jack Rollins' point of view.





	

Year 2000, Atlantic Ocean. A ship gets hijacked, STRIKE’s sent on a rescue mission. Young recruit Jack Rollins falls into the ocean and almost drowns.

Year 2006, Mexico City. Jack gets caught up in an explosion. He takes shrapnel to the face and loses an eye. It almost costs him his job.

Year 2008, Tehran. Jack and Brock get sent on a mission with mercenaries, with an order to dispose of them afterwards. The mercenaries don’t like the idea. Brock gets stabbed in his side and almost dies of blood loss while they wait for extraction.

Year 2009, Casablanca. Commander’s Brock Rumlow first mission with the Winter Soldier. Young recruit Michael Cowdery makes a mistake and the Winter Soldier kills him off. There are no mistakes in Hydra, Winter Soldier explains. ( _It could’ve been any of us,_ Jack mutters to Brock later. _No,_ Brock replies with a grim expression, _we don’t make mistakes._ )

But if someone were to ask Jack what his scariest mission was, he’d say the Battle of New York. And he wasn’t even there.

\--

A call wakes him up at 0200 hours. It’s Brock.

“It better be something good,” Jack croaks into the receiver.

“Get outside, I’m swiping you for a rescue mission.”

He swallows a groan and rubs his eyelids. “Who are we rescuing?”

“Ours.”

That efficiently wakes him up. He gets out of bed and gets dressed in whatever’s lying on the bedroom floor. He hears a helicopter when he grabs an apple from the kitchen. He takes a bite and leaves it on the kitchen counter. He puts on boots, not wasting time for tying the laces – that could wait – and throws a leather jacket on his shoulders. When he gets outside and locks the front door, the helicopter lands on the gravelly road in front of his gate. The door opens and a hand gestures for him to hurry up. It’s dark and Jack can’t make out the face, but he knows it must be Brock.

“P.E.G.A.S.U.S. collapsed,” Brock says as they fly above Washington. Jack can’t help but notice his hair is, as always, on point. Jack’s is falling in his face. “Fury mobilized everyone. _Everyone._ I don’t know how many got trapped in there, but we must be talking hundreds.”

“STRIKE was in there,” Jack says.

“No shit.”

They arrive at the site with the sunrise. Jack holds his breath as he takes in the sight of the whole base leveled to the ground. It wasn’t an explosion that caused this; Jack’s never been here before, but just looking at the debris now gives him a good idea of what the place used to look like. The building literally collapsed on itself.

“What happened here?” He makes a poor job of keeping terror out of his voice.

“Hell if I know,” Brock replies. “Coulson didn’t go into detail.”

They’re approached by Maria Hill when they get out of the helicopter. Her temple is scraped to blood and she has grime smudged on her cheek. She starts briefing them before Brock even manages to ask what the hell happened.

“Do you remember Thor and New Mexico?”

They both nod with their jaws clenched; they remember all too well. It’s hard to forget a small town getting wiped out of the ground, even harder cleaning up what was left. Jack remembers pulling out dead bodies out of debris, some of them crushed so badly he still has nightmares about it. He scans the collapsed base in front of him – so that’s what happened? This is going to be worse. Much worse.

“It was Thor’s brother, Loki,” Hill says. “He stole the Tesseract.”

“So Phase 2 is compromised,” Brock says. “Pierce gonna be delighted. Good job.”

“It wasn’t our fault,” Hill snaps. “It happened. There was nothing we could do to stop him.”

“Thankfully I’m not the one who’ll have to explain himself.” Brock doesn’t look at her even once, his eyes fixed on the sight before him instead. There’s a STRIKE unit already working, digging through the rubble.

Hill sighs, the corners of her mouth pulled down. Jack sees she wants to say something more, but is stalling.

“What is it?” he prompts.

Her eyes flick to him. “Barton’s compromised, too.”

That makes Brock turn and look at her. “How exactly?”

“We’re not sure.” She purses her lips. “He turned.”

“What, for Loki?”

Hill gives something between a shrug and a nod. Brock grits his teeth as he looks over the fallen base again.

“Well, let’s get to work,” he says finally. “We stall some more and there’ll be no one left to save.”

They spend a whole day recovering corpses of their colleagues. Jack thinks that with every dead body it’ll become easier, but it never does, especially when he sees a familiar face. Some faces are unrecognizable. They almost cry in relief when they find an agent that is still alive. Eight hours in, Jack feels all his muscles and he’s yawning every other minute.

“Don’t you need a break?” he asks Brock, sweating and panting.

“No. Sleep is for the weak.”

“I have another!” they hear Newell’s voice in their earpieces.

“Where are you?” asks a medic.

“The tunnels, the west side. He’s unconscious but there’s a heartbeat.”

“On it.”

“Good job,” Brock says before looking at Jack. The bags under his eyes are the size of teabags. “I can’t force you to keep at it. We’re all tired, and we’re useless like this, I get it. Gather agents who wish to get some rest, too. I’m staying.”

Jack nods and repeats the command on the comm as he paces towards the quinjets STRIKE arrived in. A bunch of colleagues join him, but even more choose to stay.

They land at the nearest motel. Jack ends up in a room with Bourne, but they don’t talk. He lies down in bed, but whenever he closes his eyes, he sees dead faces, so he keeps his eyes open, letting his thoughts flow freely until he gets bored and goes out for a smoke. The area here is quiet, there’s nothing around him but sand. He puts out the cigarette on the sole of his boot and puts his earpiece back in.

“Rumlow, do you copy?” he asks.

“I copy,” Brock replies, fatigue evident in his voice.

“What’s your status?”

“We’ve got another three alive, even more dead. About forty right now. Mostly STRIKE, some scientists.”

Jack nods, swallows a curse. “You need me back there?” He’s still exhausted, but he feels better than he did an hour ago.

“No, we’re almost done here.”

He takes a shower, washing sweat, sand and dust off his body and hair. Pain starts to settle in his muscles, but hot water eases away the tension in his back. He stands under the shower until the water turns cold, staring at his toes, his mind blank.

The sky’s dark when he talks to Brock again.

“There’s a situation in Germany, they want a team there.” Brock’s voice is croaky, his breath loud in Jack’s ear. He can’t even begin to imagine how exhausted Brock must be.

“We’ll get there in the morning.” Which means it’s a cleanup mission, which Jack doesn’t like. He wanted to clean up somebody’s messes, he’d become a janitor.

“I know. Take two people, no more. McKinnon and Leighton. They’re with you, aren’t they?”

The mission turns out to be a waste of time. Some people died but the local police already took care of that. Jack doesn’t complain, though; he manages to slip out of consciousness few times on the way to and back. It’s easier to fall asleep in the quinjet with the steady whir of engines lulling him than in the unnerving quietness of a motel room.

They get back straight to the Triskelion. Normally, Jack would take a day off and tell whoever had a problem with it to go fuck themselves. But with a secret operation going downhill and some guy from outer space causing trouble, he knows S.H.I.E.L.D. wants him operational today, no matter how exhausted he is.

Forget S.H.I.E.L.D., _Hydra_ wants him operational today no matter how exhausted he is.

McKinnon pulls a pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of her leather jacket as they walk from the airfield to the front gate of Triskelion and looks at him questioningly. He nods and grabs his own pack. There are few people smoking in front of the Triskelion, gathered around the trashcans. Mostly techs, but there are also two STRIKE members, which means the rescue mission in Mojave Desert is over. Jack wonders how many brothers in arms they lost and how many they will in the course of following days. As long as Loki roams free, they’re at war.

He’s about to take his second drag when he hears Brock’s voice in his earpiece.

“STRIKE, there’s an _alien invasion_ in New York. Gear up, quinjets are waiting for you _right now_. I repeat, there’s an alien invasion in New York, gear up and move out to airfield immediately.” There’s a beat before he says, “Rollins, I’ll meet you in your office.”

McKinnon’s pained expression mirrors Jack’s as they both look at their cigarettes. They rush inside the Triskelion and part their ways as Jack reaches the elevator. He rides to the fourteenth floor. He can spot Brock’s short, trim form from afar, standing stiffly in front of Jack’s office.

“What do you want?” he asks upon reaching him and pulls out his keys. He lets them in and closes the door behind them. “Shouldn’t we be on our way to the quinjets?”

Brock turns to face him and only then Jack has a chance to take a proper look. His face is pale like a dead man’s, he has deep shadows circling his eyes and his usually perfectly done hair is a mess, greasy strands sticking out in every direction, like he spent too much time pulling them. He looks older than he did just a week ago. Jack assumes he didn’t even catch an hour of sleep last night.

“Pierce wants a bodyguard,” Brock says flatly. “Demands my best man.”

“Bourne?” Jack suggests.

Brock looks at him pointedly, but it still takes Jack a moment to fully understand.

“What, me?”

Brock barely manages to nod before Jack starts protesting.

“No, forget it. Send Bourne. He’s good. Fuck, send McKinnon, she’s even better. I’m sure Pierce won’t mind a woman.”

“He wants my best man, and that’s you.”

“I’m the SIC and you need me on the field!” he snaps, and he doesn’t mean to, he really doesn’t, but he’s definitely too tired and too pissed off to control himself. “What does Pierce need a bodyguard for?! The invasion’s in New York!”

It’s still hard to imagine they’re talking about an actual alien invasion, like this is some kind of a sci fi, catastrophic movie and not real life.

“For now,” Brock says darkly, fixing Jack with a hard glare. “Those are fucking aliens, we don’t know what will happen. New Mexico and Thor, remember?”

Of course Jack does, and that’s exactly why Brock should send somebody else to Pierce and take Jack with him.

“I’m not staying here while you risk your lives.”

“Rollins, for fuck’s sake, every second you waste on arguing with me, a civilian is dying.”

And for some reason, probably because his brain isn’t working properly, Jack doesn’t give a damn.

“Just send fucking McKinnon, you know you need me on the field.”

He reaches out for Brock, wants to grab his shoulders, maybe shake some sense into him, but Brock easily blocks him.

“I need you here.” He raises his voice. “We don’t know what will happen, alright, so I need somebody here in case shit goes FUBAR. I don’t _trust_ anybody else to lead a team _and_ keep Pierce safe at the same time.” Jack opens his mouth to keep arguing, but Brock doesn’t let him. “Fiftieth floor, Rollins. Guard Pierce. That’s an order.”

Jack is seething with his jaw clenched as he stares back at Brock, the hard glare of his hazel eyes, the pursed lips, the chest raising quickly with every shallow intake of breath. He wants to – well, he’s not sure exactly, and before he has a chance to figure it out, Brock storms out of his office and all Jack can do is watch him walk away and disappear behind the elevator doors.

\--

“World Security Council,” Jack says as he steps in the elevator.

He looks out through the glass, scans the outside of the Triskelion. The smokers are gone; everyone gathered inside to try and put the situation under control. Soon, STRIKE divided in units marches through, heading towards the airfield. Despite being now high enough for people to look like ants, Jack spots Brock immediately. He’s leading the first team, Alpha. Jack recognizes the person behind him as McKinnon – there’s no mistaking this red hair. He wishes he could reach her on the comm, order her to keep Rumlow safe, but they’re using a different channel. He also knows he doesn’t have to tell her that. That she knows. STRIKE is as perfect as a Swiss watch – everybody knows their place and their role, working together comes easy and natural. STRIKE is Brock’s perfect vision of how he wants the world to be. He wants to live in a goddamn Swiss watch. The corner of Jack’s mouth raises at that thought.

Then he remembers Brock’s perfect watch is missing a wheel. It’s stuck on Triskelion’s fiftieth floor.

The elevator stops and Jack forces himself to turn away, step out and pace towards Pierce’s office.

“Bones to Dispatch, keep me updated on STRIKE’s status,” he says. If he’s gonna get stuck in the corridor guarding Pierce’s office, he won’t even be able to check his phone for news.

“Copy that,” answers a voice in his earpiece.

Jack reaches the office and knocks on the door.

\--

Two hours later, Dispatch is still silent in his ear. Jack forces himself to stand still in front of Pierce’s office. Being professional has never cost him so much stress before.

Pierce’s assistant crosses the corridor carrying a tray with a pot of tea and two cups.

“Any news?” he asks her.

She looks up at him in sympathy and offers a light smile. “We activated the Avengers Initiative.”

Jack makes sure his face stays neutral, but inside he’s confused. “I thought we scrapped that project.”

Avengers is bad news. Pierce spent weeks manipulating the Council into shutting that project down. A team of uncontrolled enhanced humans is a danger to the order of the world, to Hydra.

The assistant just shrugs and passes by, knocks on the door before walking in.

“Thank you, Angela.”

Jack hears the tin tray being set on a hard wood, a chair being pulled and finally two sets of footsteps. Angela and Pierce reach the door; she walks away towards her little room just opposite, he pauses to look at Jack.

 “Please, come in, agent Rollins,” he says. “No need to guard the door. When aliens attack us, we’ll know about it.”

He smiles, showing his teeth, and Jack walks in. Pierce closes the door behind them and gestures towards one of the armchairs for Jack to sit in. The silver tray is set on the coffee table between the armchairs.

“Tea?” Pierce waits for Jack to sit down before taking a place in front of him. He raises the pot and fills both cups.

“Thank you,” Jack’s manners make him reply, but he hopes Pierce didn’t invite him in for a small talk. He looks around the office, hoping for – he’s not quite sure – a TV with a news channel on? But the office is quiet and the only thing that could hold his attention is a picture of Triskelion hanging on an otherwise bland wall.

“Commander Rumlow must trust you very much,” Pierce says. So they are indeed having a small talk.

“I am his second in command, sir.”

“Of course.” Pierce smiles at him the way his favorite uncle would. “I’m glad. Trustworthy agents are very valuable to us, as I’m sure you know.”

Jack nods. All Hydra agents are reliable, of course, they wouldn’t be recruited otherwise. But apparently if commander Rumlow trusts you, you’re a whole new level of trustworthy.

“You seem concerned.”

Jack almost flinches. He doesn’t want to look concerned, he wants to look professional.

Pierce raises an eyebrow at him, letting him know he’s awaiting an explanation. He’s still smiling. Jack wonders if his cheeks aren’t hurting.

“The Avengers,” he says, although it’s not his primary concern. He doesn’t find Pierce easy to talk to, never has. This is only the second time they’re alone in the same room, the first time being Jack’s recruitment to Hydra. It’s usually Brock doing the talking.

“Ah.” Pierce dismisses it with a wave of his hand, picks up a cup, takes a sip. “Don’t worry about it. It’ll be taken care of.”

Jack nods again and mirrors Pierce, picking up the other cup. The tea is still hot enough to burn his tongue but he doesn’t let it show. He puts the cup down on the table.

“Would you call commander Rumlow your friend?”

Jack looks up at him, half sure he must have heard wrong. What does Pierce care? What is the point of this conversation?

“It’s good to have friends in this line of work,” Pierce elaborates. “I learnt to trust commander Rumlow’s judgement of character.”

“He’s a good leader,” Jack replies. “We get along.”

“Director Fury has been my best friend for twenty years. He’s out there. I worry, too.”

“But Director Fury isn’t with us.”

“Isn’t he?” Pierce raises his eyebrows, smiles smugly. “He does everything I tell him to. More or less. He’s always had a mind of his own. But he supports our cause. Just doesn’t know who stands behind it.”

Jack nods; he’s aware. People hear Hydra and cry Nazi. Red Skull gave them bad publicity. Hydra is more than that, has always been more, but some people are too close-minded to understand. Too stubborn to admit their wrongs.

Somebody knocks on the door again; it’s Angela. Pierce stands up; she leans in to whisper something to him.

“Excuse me,” Pierce says as she leaves. He brushes off his suit. “I have a meeting with the Council.”

Jack can’t help but feel relieved as he stands up and leaves the office. He pauses behind the door, looks both ways, notices a door leading to restrooms. Pierce said there was no need to guard his office.

Jack slips inside the men’s restroom and checks his phone. News portals don’t tell him anything beyond what he already knows. The only things worth his time are videos uploaded to YouTube by New Yorkers. Most of them are blurry and last only few seconds, but what Jack sees makes his skin break in cold sweat. There are cars blowing up, people screaming while others burn alive. There are _creatures_ running through the streets and cruising the skies. They’re armored, yielding weapons that remind him of absolutely nothing; from what he can see on blurry videos, they are about six and a half feet tall and absolutely repulsive. Finally, there are huge, flying, spiked, wormlike… things. Jack can’t quite tell if they’re creatures or ships or both, but they look like something straight out of nightmares.

He’s barely aware of sinking down on the cold, hard floor of the restroom, his knees drawn to his chest, as he replays the last video. He can see Iron Man crossing the sky. There are also two people dressed in something similar to STRIKE uniforms, but video’s too blurry to be sure.

He clenches his phone tighter, purses his lips. He’s been working for S.H.I.E.L.D. for thirteen years now and he’s never seen anything like this. It’s an apocalypse, Hell on Earth – and his team’s trapped in the middle of it while he drinks tea in Pierce’s cozy office.

Hours pass without any news from neither Dispatch nor Angela. Jack finds himself thinking about Brock more than anything else. He wishes they were connected on the comm so he would know how the battle is going. If anybody’s injured. If they’re getting out of this. He wishes Dispatch would update him on STRIKE’s status, or at least Alpha’s status.

 _Brock’s okay_ , he tells himself. _If the commander went down, everybody would already know about it._

No news from Dispatch is good news, Brock often says.

\--

 His heart skips a beat when there’s _finally_ a voice in his ear.

“Sir, S.H.I.E.L.D. launched a missile to New York City.”

 “What?” he asks, then he collects himself. “Repeat, Dispatch.”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. launched a missile to New York City.”

Jack’s skin crawls. His knees threaten to give out beneath him as he rushes down the corridor, without any purpose in mind, just needing to be _out_. Away from Pierce’s office.

“Connect me to Cross,” he breathes out. He storms inside the men’s restroom and leans against the door. His legs are slightly shaking.

“On it.”

Technically Jack knows only seconds pass before he hears Brock’s voice, but it feels like eternity.

“Rollins?” Brock’s voice is breathy. He must have the time of his life, fighting those spikey, gray-blue… things.

“Brock.” It’s more of a sigh than a word; the air around Jack seems to suddenly lack in oxygen.

“You heard the news, I gather?” Brock sounds awfully casual, as if they are discussing the weather report.

“It’s true, then.”

“Yeah. I’ve been dreaming about hitting the sack. Looks like it’ll happen sooner than I anticipated.”

Jack stares straight ahead, unseeing, his mouth slack from shock. Manhattan is really going to get nuked, STRIKE or civilians be damned. Everyone is gonna die. _Brock_ is gonna die.

“Shit. No. Fuck.” His breath hitches, his fist hits then door behind him.

“Are you crying? Shit… Don’t do this to me. This is my last conversation with you, don’t cry on me.”

“Then don’t die on me.” His voice is thankfully mostly steady, but his eyes burn from held back tears.

“I’ll try, but I don’t know about anybody who survived getting nuked.” Brock actually laughs. Jack knows the feeling. They were facing death before, laughing it off is the best way to stay sane to the very end. “Hey… Cheer up. You got promoted to a commander of STRIKE. Congrats. I’d bake you a cake but…”

“I should be there with you,” Jack growls.

“So both of us would die?” Brock’s voice grows sharper. Jack is reminded of Brock scolding him in his office just few hours ago. It feels more like days. “Don’t be stupid. I’m glad you’re safe. Live for me, Rollins. That’s an order. My last one.”

Jack shifts to rest his forehead on a tile wall. It’s cold against his skin. He hits it with his fist half-heartedly while his other hand covers his mouth in case any uncontrolled sobs try to escape him. He can hear distant sounds of a fight in that short moment of silence between them.

“No, I take that back. Stop fucking crying, that’s my last order,” Brock barks, then his voice softens. “Holy shit. You want me to turn into a mess, here? No, you don’t. So stop. Hey, McKinnon says hi.”

“Is she okay?” Jack asks stupidly. Like it even matters.

“Peachy. HOLY SHIT!”

Jack’s heart almost jumps out of his chest as he hears what he fears is Brock dying.

“Brock? Brock, are you there?” he asks with his heart in his throat when the silence between them prolongs.

“I’m here.” And just like that, Jack’s heart calms down. “I take all that back. We’re not getting nuked.”

“What?” he asks weakly.

“Yeah, sorry about that.” Brock’s voice shifts again; it’s lighter, cheerful even. “You’re still the SIC. Listen, I gotta go now. Over and out.”

The line goes dead. Jack takes a deep breath, wipes his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Dispatch, what happened there?” he asks.

“It seems that Iron Man flew the missile through a portal in space, sir.”

Jack blinks. It’s a lot to take in, but the details don’t matter now. What’s important is the missile is gone and STRIKE’s life expectancy just jumped from zero to… well, more than zero.

\--

Pierce dismisses him, but although he’s exhausted, he doesn’t go home. He’s still too nervous to sleep, anyway. He goes out for a much needed smoke, and he stays outside long after he’s finished, with his back leaning against the wall. He scans the sky every now and then, waiting for the quinjets to show up.

“Sir, the commander just reported one dead, one major and two minor injuries in Alpha.”

His blood runs cold. They lost another one. He starts to wonder who, but gives up – does it even matter?

Dispatch starts reporting on Bravo, Charlie and Echo, but Jack pulls his earpiece out. He’s too tired for this.

He straightens up when the quinjets finally land. He takes a few shaky steps towards the airfield before he collects himself and walks more firmly. The first quinjet is Alpha’s; the door opens and two agents walk out. Leighton is leaning on McKinnon’s shoulder and limping. McKinnon flashes him a smile as they pass by.

“Good to see you, Jack,” she says, but this moment Brock chooses to exit the quinjet as well, and she loses Jack’s attention.

“Where the fuck are the medics?!” he’s shouting to his earpiece. “I reported a major abdominal injury half an hour ago! I need a gurney here!” He notices Jack pacing towards him and his ghostly face lights up. He disconnects.

Jack can’t help but grab him by the shoulder upon reaching him. He squeezes the meat, feels the solid bone underneath, making sure it’s real, that it’s really Brock standing before him and not a hallucination. The relief of seeing him alive and whole almost knocks him down. He clenches Brock’s shoulder tighter as it’s the only thing holding him up and masking how weak his knees are.

Brock winces. “You wanna break my bones or what?”

“Sorry.” Jack inhales deeply, slowly lets Brock go. His legs don’t give out beneath him, so he considers it a success. “You look good.”

Brock huffs out a laugh. Strands of hair that fall loosely upon his forehead are caked in something mucous and colorless; his face and hands are grimy, and a side of his neck is bloodied. “Good” is not what he looks. Still, Jack is so happy to see him he can’t tear his eyes away. He’s so happy he could kiss him.

His eyes trail down Brock’s neck and he notices a gushing wound right beneath his collarbone. “You’re bleeding.”

“It’s just a scratch,” Brock says, his eyes focusing on something behind Jack’s back. It doesn’t look like a scratch; the skin is scraped and Jack can see the raw meat, but it’s not life-threatening either.

Two medics run towards the quinjet with a gurney; soon they carry out Bourne. He’s even paler than Brock and unconscious. Gerhardt follows them.

Only Blackwell is missing. That means…

“Let’s go to the medical,” Brock says and they start walking. “Leighton probably limped there already.”

“What happened?” Jack’s eyes are still glued to Brock’s face. Now that all the stress and relief is slowly draining from him, he can feel a headache coming on.

“Alien invasion is what happened. I’m more worried about Bourne, he got stabbed pretty bad. Blackwell burned alive, the smell is still in my nose.”

Jack nods and they walk the rest of the way in silence. In the medical bay, a nurse insists on dressing Brock’s wound. Leighton is sitting on one of the beds with her leg bandaged; when asked how she is, she says okay. Gerhardt is lingering inside despite being generally unharmed.

“So how’s Bourne?” Brock asks him.

“They’re operating him right now. He lost a lot of blood, but they say he should be fine.”

Brock takes a shower in the locker room and his hair is still wet when they go out to the parking lot. Their cars are parked near each other and Jack pauses to watch Brock unlock his. He clenches his jaw; he almost lost him today. He’s not yet ready to let him go.

“You sure you can drive?” he asks, hoping he sounds casual and not pining. Because he’s not _pining_. His friend almost died, it’s natural he wants to make sure he’s gonna be okay.

“I’m fine,” Brock grumbles.

“You can barely keep your eyes open.”

Brock turns around, his hand resting on the hood of his old Toyota Yaris and looks up at him. “Wanna drop me off?”

Jack shrugs. Brock nods and throws him his keys.

Jack is tired himself, and his head is pounding, but he manages to drive Brock home without crashing. Brock vegs out in the passenger seat, with his legs spread, arms crossed on his chest and eyes closed. Jack assumes he dozed off, but the moment he parks in front of Brock’s apartment building and switches off the engine, Brock’s eyes open.

“Can I wait at yours for a cab?” Jack asks as they exit the car and Brock starts towards his apartment building.

“Sure, but don’t expect me to entertain you. I’m hitting the sack right away.”

“I wasn’t holding my breath, you’re not exactly entertaining.”

Brock flips him off and Jack laughs. It feels good, just the two of them bantering without a care in the world, like it’s just another day. Like they weren’t attacked by aliens, like they didn’t lose anybody.

Just like he warned, Brock goes straight to the bedroom. Jack stays in the living room, sits down on a couch, pulls out his phone and orders a cab. Then he stretches out his long legs, leans his head back on the backrest, closes his eyes and listens to the silence. Now that he has nothing else to focus on, the pounding in his head is almost unbearable. He scowls and stands up, searches Brock’s cupboards until he finds a bottle of painkillers, takes two and washes them down with water.

The bedroom door opens and Brock emerges, dressed in gray sweatpants and a black tank top.

“Slept well?” Jack watches him open a fridge and stuff his face in.

“Fuck off,” Brock mutters. He pulls out a bottle of white wine and shuts the door. “I need a drink. Want one, too?”

“I just ordered a cab.”

Brock shrugs. “Cancel it.” He doesn’t look at Jack as he opens the bottle and fills two glasses.

Jack can’t stop the corners of his mouth from raising as he texts his cab driver, but at least he’s not outright grinning. He takes his glass and goes to join Brock on the couch. Brock takes a big drag of wine and turns on the TV. He winces at the news report that is airing and changes a channel to a documentary about penguins. Jack can’t blame him; he wasn’t in New York during the battle, but his stomach turns when he as much as thinks about it. He can only imagine how Brock feels.

He realizes he shouldn’t mix alcohol with painkillers only when he empties his glass and Brock refills it. His thinking considerably slows down, he really must be tired. At least his headache passed. The dim room and a soothing voice describing the mating habits of penguins are so comfortable, Jack could just close his eyes and drift off. Apparently, Brock gets the same idea, because suddenly Jack feels the weight of his head on his chest.

“Not a word,” Brock warns in a rough voice.

Jack’s brain is too tired to think of a satisfying jeer anyway. His hand rests on Brock’s head, his hair is soft and fluffy between his fingers. He looks down; Brock’s eyes are closed. Jack can still see crushed bodies peeking out from beneath tons of rubble and dead faces of his colleagues when he closes his; he can only guess what Brock sees. People burning alive? Blue-gray aliens in spiked armor? If the only way he can fall asleep is with Jack’s reassuring presence beside him, then Jack isn’t gonna protest.

Until Brock starts snoring and Jack realizes he’s trapped beneath him on a couch in a rather uncomfortable position for sleeping.

“Come on, let’s get you to bed,” he says, trying to push Brock off him. Brock grunts sleepily but stands up and lets Jack lead him to his bedroom.

The room is just big enough to contain a double bed, a desk with a chair and two nightstands. Jack has seen bigger motel rooms. It’s white and sterile, with the bed neatly made and not a speck of dust in sight, only a little more cozy than a hospital room.

“Want me to tuck you in?”

“Fuck you,” Brock replies without heat. Thankfully, he doesn’t need any help getting into bed.

“I’ll stay for a while, wait for a cab, okay?”

“Screw cab,” Brock mumbles. “Stay the night and I’ll drive you in the morning, you’re gonna save five dollars.”

“I’m not sleeping on that tiny couch of yours.”

“It’s a loveseat,” Brock corrects. “And just lie down here, what’s the matter? We’ve shared beds before.”

“On missions.”

“How’s this any different?”

Then it was a necessity. Not that Jack’s complaining. He takes his clothes off, folds them sloppily and drops them on the chair. He lies down on the other side of the bed, leaving a comfortable space between Brock and himself, so the chance of them touching, even unintentionally, is faint. He turns on his side to face him. He feels an unexplainable need to reach out and caress his cheek, check if his skin is as smooth as it looks. He misses the feeling of his hair between his fingers. But what he does is to tuck his hands under his head.

“Jack,” Brock sighs. Jack holds his breath, his eyes fixed on the slightly parted lips. “Are you staring at me?”

“Sorry. I can’t stop thinking about the missile,” Jack murmurs.

“Me too.” Brock turns on his side as well so now they’re both facing each other. His eyes reflect the city lights seeping in through the windows, making his irises look almost yellow. “I was terrified,” he admits, his voice barely a whisper. “But I had to keep it together for the team… And then you called.” He takes in a shaky breath. “The only thing keeping me sane was knowing you were safe.”

Jack frowns. “You did it on purpose,” he realizes. “You sent me to Pierce to keep me out of danger.”

“I was following orders.”

“Did Pierce ask for your best man? Or just for a man?”

“Of course he wanted my best man. He didn’t need to say so.”

“What are you not telling me?” Jack watches Brock’s face closely, his challengingly raised eyebrow, the little lopsided smile. It’s all a mask. Brock keeps forgetting Jack learnt to read him like a book. “You knew. You must have known something like this would happen.”

Brock stops smiling. “I had my suspicions,” he admits. “Fury gathered all the people considered for the Avengers Initiative, his goal was quite obvious. I knew Pierce would want them out of the picture, no matter the cost. Not that hard to piece it together. So yeah, when he told me he wanted somebody to stay with him, I chose you. And you should be thanking me. I spared you the horror of waiting for a missile to drop on your head.”

“I was waiting for a missile to drop on _your_ head. That’s much worse.”

“You’d get over it.”

Jack doesn’t have words for how wrong Brock is. Brock’s death doesn’t feel like something he would ever be able to recover from, not fully, no matter how many other fallen brothers he buried. And that paralyzes him, clenches at his chest, making it harder to breathe, because in their line of work, the chance of that happening is high. Every day they get up and go to work, not knowing if they’re gonna come back. Maybe it’s pills and wine talking – that’s what he chooses to believe at least – but Jack wants to show Brock, wants him to know, and so he reaches out to cup his face – the stubble tickles his hand – and pulls him close, pressing their lips together. A sound of surprise falls from Brock’s mouth and Jack swallows it, takes his bottom lip between his and tastes – it still tastes faintly of wine – and somewhere in the back of his mind, he’s expecting Brock’s hands to push him away, he’s expecting Brock to scramble away from him so urgently he falls out of bed, any second now, as soon as he recovers from initial shock of his best friend kissing him. And because he knows his heart’s gonna break in a matter of seconds, he decides to make the best of it; he pulls Brock even closer, tangling his fingers into his fluffy hair and deepens the kiss. Brock’s hands are cold against his heated skin as they press at his chest, and Jack pulls away almost instantly, ready for Brock to freak out and kick him out into the night. But all Brock does is stare at him intently, a little crease formed between his eyebrows, as if waiting for an explanation.

“I wouldn’t get over it,” Jack whispers. “I can still call for that cab if you don’t want—”

Brock’s hand is on Jack’s neck, pulling him down, and his mouth covers Jack’s. He runs his tongue across Jack’s lower lip and licks inside. The sound Jack makes at the back of his throat is full of longing and want, because he _dreamt_ of this happening more than once. His hands are on Brock again, one against his cheek, his fingers tracing the shape of his cheekbone, the other clenches his hip. When Brock breaks the kiss, Jack’s lips burn and his mind is clouded with too many emotions to name them all.

“Shut up,” Brock breathes, looking down, his chest raising and falling against Jack’s. “You started it.”

“No homo?” Jack sneers.

Brock nods curtly, either not acknowledging Jack’s sarcasm, or not wanting to. “It was a, a brokiss.”

Jack raises an eyebrow, but he can’t stop himself from grinning. Thanks to the city lights, the room isn’t dark enough to cover the flush in Brock’s cheeks. “I see. What’s next? Brosex?”

“Don’t hold your breath.” Brock punches him lightly on the chest. “Can we try and sleep now? I’m exhausted.”

Jack nods. His hand is still resting on Brock’s hip, the bone fitting perfectly into his palm. Brock doesn’t try to move away.

**Author's Note:**

> I struggled with this one. It might show. Let me know what you think.
> 
> James Bourne, Kurt Gerhardt and Rachel Leighton are mercenaries in Marvel Comics.


End file.
